“Thank you, Shep. You did good. We got it from here.”
I nod and drop back, but Claudia reaches for me. “Shep,” she says weakly.
“Don’t worry, hun,” Dr. Springs says in her soothing voice. “He’ll be right here. Don’t worry.”
I wait in the hallway until they disappear with Claudia through another set of doors. I shove my hands in my pockets and realize that I don’t have my keys or my phone. They are both in my truck, which is still sitting in the ambulance bay. I jog outside and park my truck in the parking lot, ignoring the sounds of sirens in the otherwise quiet night. Back inside, the emergency waiting room is quiet.
I can’t sit. I’m calm, but my heart's still pounding. There’s ringing in my ears. I start pacing. I keep looking at my hands. It’s definitely shock.
“Hey man.” I look up at Todd Logan, QER’s worst orderly. There was a time when Todd kicked my ass for fun, but my growth spurt put an end to that. “Eartha told me to give you this.” He has a set of scrubs in his hand. “What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’d you kill?” He laughs. I don’t. “Oh shit. You fucking killed someone?”
“How about we do this some other time,” I say.
“You brought in the stab wounds? Did you stab her?”
“Todd!” We both look up as his grandmother comes back through the swinging doors. “Is your shift over?”
“No, ma’am.” She rips the blue shirt out of his hand and nods down the other hall. “Scoot.”
“I gotta hear this story, man,” he says as he starts walking backwards down the hall.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Miss Fern says with a smile.
“Did you see her?” I ask as I finally sit.
“They’re still working on her now, but I think she’ll be okay. She’s fighting. You want to tell me what happened?” Fern Logan, unlike her shitty ass grandson is beloved by the whole county. She kept me in casseroles for a year after my grandfather passed. It isn’t a matter of whether or not I feel like Icanrehash the last two hours of my life. It’s more like I respect Miss Fern enough to dredge it all up again. I tell her every detail.
“You saved her life.”
“Maybe. She—yeah. Her brother might still be out there though. She said he told her to run. He might be dead.”
“Try not to think about that, sweetheart. You did what you could and that was a whole lot.”
“Yeah.” I look down at my hands again.
“We haven’t had one of these in a while, but just hang tight. You’re gonna have to talk to Jerry. About all of this.” I look up into her milky green eyes. She nods down at my hands. They are shaking. So is my leg. I’ve known Jerry as long as I’ve known anyone in Quentin County, but I should probably get my shit together before I sit down to talk to the head of the Sheriff’s department.
“I know,” I say.
“You want some coffee?”
“I’ll grab it.”
“Nonsense. You’ve had a hell of a night. Just hang tight. I’ll check in on her and then I’ll grab you something to drink.”
“Thank you.”
I wait. Fern comes back with coffee. They are finishing up with Claudia. They’ll have more news in a few minutes, she tells me. A woman comes in with a feverish baby. I try not to let the look on her face when she does a double take in my direction bother me too much. After Fern gets the mother and her baby situated, Fern checks on Claudia again. She’s out of surgery. Even though I’m not family, she sneaks me back.
Dr. Spring is waiting for us outside of her room. “We gave her something for the pain so she’s a little woozy, but she’s fighting sleeping. She’s a tough one for sure.”
“I’m seeing that,” I say.
Fern winks at me, then ushers me inside of the room. I hesitate until she and Dr. Spring are out of sight before I enter all the way. Then I zip up my jacket and shove my hands in my pockets. I sit in the shitty plastic chair beside her bed.